Why this dish works, besides the tasty ingredients, is that the grape tomatoes and spaghetti squash balance the cream sauce and shrimp.

Manicotti pomodori e gambero

8 manicotti, prepared as the box suggests

Filling (uh, mix these together):

1 spaghetti squash, halved, baked at 350 for about an hour (cut side down, then a flip at :40) and disemboweled with a fork1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheesesalt, pepper and nutmeg to taste15 medium shrimp, peeled and chopped (in thirds)1 medium onion, thinly sliced and more or less carmelized in 2 tablespoons butter

Sauce:I made a cream sauce by using the butter for the onions, plus 2 tablespoons. About 1/5 or 1/6 cup flour then went in, along with 2 cloves of a shallot and about 2 cups milk (this is a thin-ish sauce), which I reduced for a while. I then added about 1/4 cup heavy cream to finish the sauce.

OK, so duh, stuff the manicotti and place them in a small rectangular casserole (9x13) and line the ends of the noodles with the remaining filling (there'll be plenty). Cover with halved grape tomatoes (about a pint comes in the little plastic baskets you find at the store) and the sauce. Bake for 15 minutes at 350, then pull the dish, finely grate Parmesan over the top and bake for 5 or 10 more minutes.

Friday, May 26, 2006

As reported Wednesday, the Oregon State Patrol carried out Operation Trucker Check X (apparently they want to be like the Superb Owl...) this week around Ashland.

The operation, according to a Friday press release from OSP, seems to have been pretty tame considering this highlight:

"An OSP sergeant contacted a commercial driver during the inspection and commented that this individual was the most fatigued driver he has come across during an inspection. The driver was subsequently placed out of service."

Wowzers, that's pretty thrilling.

That driver wasn't the only problem, though: Of the 394 trucks stopped, 98 drivers were "placed out of service for varying time periods." Not sure what that means, but that's about a quarter of drivers, and you have to know that the checkpoint stopped being a surprise after, oh, about the third truck rolled through.

Wowzers, that's pretty stupid.

Besides the usual logbook violations and whatnot, three drivers were charged with drug possession and a set of brass knuckles was seized.

So, I've been fumbling in the darkness of memory to retrieve an excellent poem I saw years ago in the New Yorker about a dog (who lived in the country and was such a good dog it came back in the next life as a human who was stuck in an apartment in the city). No dice yet.

But it did remind me of a very good poem, another one I can't find, about melting snow and headlights.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Somebody smart came up with the excellent idea of a collection of Townes Van Zandt covers based on "Live at The Old Quarter." Everybodyunderthesun has already covered "Pancho & Lefty" and "If I Needed You," but not so much the other songs. Here's what we came up with, for a start:

The giant Palouse earthworm, unseen for many years, was relocated earlier this year, and you can read about it here.

As I once wrote, many moons ago in a forgotten life, I'm of two minds when a creature is discovered, or rediscovered. Happy to hear it's been found, but a little wistful that another of the vasty deep's secrets is told.

This isn't a typical case, because the worms - which are said to grow up to three feet long! - have been seen before, but its close enough to remind me of lesser-knowncreatures.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

The Oregon State Patrol is in the midst of its 10th Operation Trucker Check (they really need to contact the military for better operation names), which runs May 23-25 at the Ashland, Ore., port of entry, according to a patrol press release.

The operation boils down to a team of officers and inspectors cracking down on driver impairment (aka drug use (including alcohol - I don't know why people insist on saying drugs AND alcohol) and fatigue) and vehicle safety.

Why do it? The patrol says it is concerned with an increase in commercial vehicle wrecks in southern Oregon. The patrol goes on to cite a bunch of irrelevant statisticsfrom the state Motor Carrier Transportation Division, one of which is genuinely interesting:

"During inspections, critical safety violations were found in 24.3% of the vehicles and 8.6% of drivers."

According to the patrol, a similar operation a year ago at the port of entry in Woodburn (Christ, entry from where? That's like having a U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Oklahoma) took out of service 32 trucks and 52 drivers out of "more than 400" inspections. That's not too good, but only three of the 52 drivers were zapped for drugs (including alcohol).

So, whatever. But the best/worst/best again part of the operation is this yipyap from the Beaver State's governor:

"With the increasing truck traffic on our roads, it is in the interests of all Oregonians that we do all we can to ensure that truck drivers are able to operate safely," blabbed Gov. Ted Kulongoski in an obviously prepared statement. "This is another reason I am so committed to increasing the number of Oregon State troopers on our roads. More trucks require more troopers. More troopers will deliver more safety."

Hmmm. Besides the doubletalk and the failure to show truck traffic is really increasing, how about this novel approach: trains!

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Back in the days of milk and honey, there was such an animal as 168 magazine, a weekly entertainment publication put out by the parent company of The Area Telegraph.

I was reminded of the magazine because my last post was No. 168 (also the number of hours in a week). I thought 168 was a pretty cool idea, and they had nice-looking desks, which as you might guess I assembled. 168 was supposed to slorp up advertising bucks in TheShitsburgCorridor like an amped-up anteater in an ant farm factory.

During a wandering check of conditions, I tried the site's online and scented blood. More evidence was found during a check of staff listings at the parent company, which led me here, where I found that the overlords burned the ship to the water.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

the above were responsible for an abbreviated swim Friday, but were accompanied by nearly three-quarters of an inch of rain in our fair city, which predictably overwhelmed a lot of the drains around here... pretty spectacular, I would guess, but I didn't see any of it because of being in the pool, where the lights went out with 15 minutes to go.

On the bright side, I was way ahead of the usual pace, just as I was today. Garybob is either slowing down or I'm speeding up - or both, I suppose - because he now laps me maybe three times during the whole workout. I'm a bit suspicious that he doesn't actually make a whole mile because I know how far I go and how many times he passes me and I can do plus and minus in my head :)

Now it is gray, and the youngins even got some sprinkles during today's escape ceremony - a truly remarkable happening. Water typically stays skyward bound for the annual exercise.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

"Plane Clothes: Lack of Anonymity at the Federal Air Marshal Service Compromises Aviation and National Security"

Brilliant! The above document, generated by the House Judiciary Committee, is the subject of a revealing, depressing and typically humorous story that can be read here.

As you might guess, the reports boil down to: Air marshals have to adhere to a specific dress code, one that is designed to make them blend in, that - whoa, no way! - does the opposite.

Maybe the marshals should contact the Secret Service: There's cats who know how to blend in.

The report also states marshals have to stay in certain hotels, including the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale, where a quick check on room availability showed a room for one starts at $149 for a Saturday night in June.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Attorneys general from 40 states have asked the U.S. Treasury Department to extend cigarette-marketing rules to "little cigars," according to the Washington Post (among others).

The cigars in question look very similar to cigarettes, and the AGs say that's not a coincidence, that the smoke makers are trying to get around marketing - and taxation - rules to produce something appealing and cheap for the younger set.

Lost in the clatter of clang of anti-smoking crusaders and state officials are a couple of simple points:

a) Cigars (and for that matter, roll-your-own smokes) are still treated differently from cigarettes, which is why this loophole even exists. Want to close the loophole? Enact a unified tobacco tax. Wow, that was complicated.

b) The states need the dough more than they give a shit about smokers. There's no need to lie, either. In New Hampshire, state liquor stores are everywhere and use very low prices (i.e. very low taxes) to do a booming trade in booze, especially along Interstate 95. I'm not suggesting that the states hand out free smokes to hook youngsters, but the least they could do is quit faking like they don't need the cash.

Amid the flurry of bills and access checks, credit card holders also occasionally receive meatier news from their banks: notices of changes in policy.

Sent under cover similar to the junk mail, the notices typically consist of a nondescript and non-descriptive cover letter along with several pages of "Important Amendments to Your Credit Card Agreement."

One such letter from MBNA America Bank arrived at a Walla Walla cardholder's home this week. Besides run-of-the-mill changes such as fee increases, the document contained three surprises.

Here is Surprise No. 1 with added parentheticals. Emphasis approximates that of the letter from MBNA.

"Default pricingSummary: We are adding a Default Pricing provision to your account. In the future, if your account is late or your balance exceeds your credit limit, we may increase any of the non-promotional APRs on your account, without further notice, up to the Default Rate. Please see the Agreement section titled Default Pricing for more details." (the rate section is on the next page of the document, and shows a default rate of 24.99%, as compared to the ordinary rate of 10.99%)

"You may reject this change. If you do not, the Default Pricing provision will be added to your account effective the first day following your statement closing date in July 2006." (the letter goes on to give "Rejection Instructions for Default Pricing," which tell the cardholder to write a letter to MBNA with the holder's name and full account number and a statement that rejects the change. The letter also explicitly states that telephone contact is not sufficient to reject the policy change.)

"We added Default Pricing to your account due to a change in our business practices."

It is difficult to guess why the last sentence was added. Which changes did they make that weren't due to changes in their business practices?

Or does "change in our business practices" refer to the company's move to force paying customers to opt out of policies that could be harmful to their personal finances?

Surprise No. 2 is a change in the policy on grace periods. Essentially, any cardholder who carries a balance forfeits a grace period on subsequent purchases. That's not new, but the time frame in which to pay in full is diminished from the last day of the billing cycle to the "payment due" date. For Joe Consumer, this isn't likely to be a big deal, but for MBNA it is likely to be another way to vacuum up some cash. Bully for the brontosaurus, eh?

Surprise No. 3 only affects cardholders who use their cards abroad:

"If you make a Foreign Transaction, we will asess a transaction fee (FINANCE CHARGE) equal to 3% of the U.S. dollar amount of each such Foreign Transaction. This is in addition to any other applicable transaction fees."

Contacted for comment, the cardholder who received the letter said her plan was to ignore the opt-out deadline and simply close the account. She's not the only one.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Well, the school district's ambitious bond proposal went down in flames at the polls (so to speak, the county votes by mail) last night (also so to speak, many of the ballots were mailed in early).

I'm reminded of the Nashua School District's successful bid to build a new high school and renovate the older one a few years ago. The project, enormous by local standards (in the $100 million to $200 million range, as I recall), was approved with little apparent difficulty. In the Nashua area - long a hotbed of stinginess - the win was something of a surprise for casual observers.

But not-so-casual observers knew school bond boosters (officials and residents alike) had spent many months in a work-intensive and drawn-out process of research and consensus building with the general public for the win. The key element appeared to be that officialdom asked voters for their input and showed they had listened when the proposal finally made it to the polls.

Tuesday's rebuke here was to the tune of 60-40, far sharper than down the road in Frogland, where another school bond proposal failed (53-47 or somesuch, but apparently with too few votes to count anyway). As a colleague said, the voters' answer up here was "hell no."

Seat belt use is reaching record levels, so just who are the holdouts who fail to buckle up? Often they are young men who live in rural areas and drive pickups, the government says.

A press release about the report (both the release and report can be downloaded from the NHTSA home page), puts what Thomas says this way:

The report found the last of the unbuckled to be largely young and male, likely to live in rural areas and/or drive pickup trucks.

But Report authors Cherian Varghese and Umesh Shankar say:

When examined more closely, the data shows that the proportion of unrestrained fatalities was higher among males, on rural roadways, in pickup trucks and SUV’s, in single-vehicle crashes, and in the age group of 8 to 44 years old.

The authors' lumping of pickups and SUVs gave me pause. As it happens, they found that 18 percent of the dead (in 2004) traveled in pickups, and 15 percent were in SUVs. Sixty percent were in cars, and the rest were in vans or "other light trucks."

The report doesn't say anything about the relative prevalence of these classes of vehicles in rural and urban areas, so there's no way to know if driving a pickup in a rural area is more or less dangerous than driving a car in the same place.

Another false note struck in the press release and AP story is the age bit. Young men are indeed at higher risk, but I don't think that "young men" typically means ages 8-44, and all of those ages show a non-use rate of above 62 percent. The 21-24 set scores highest in non-use of seat belts when killed (at 66 percent), but the 8- to 15-year-olds and 35- to 44-year-olds (62 percent) aren't far behind.

My nitpicking aside, the press release and story appear to be largely on the mark, but I want to know more about who drives what in all the other cases (i.e. the times people drive that don't result in a fatal accident).

This kind of research strikes me as valuable but incomplete, kind of like the NHTSA's plan to spend $31 million on advertising to target these young, male, rural, pickup-driving scofflaws.

Who, just maybe, might not be moved by an ad showing "vehicles including pickup trucks driven in several regions of the country, with unbelted vehicle occupants receiving tickets, and then buckling up."

Sunday, May 14, 2006

The pool bleached my trunks so much in the past few months that I might soon have overtaken Monkey Playing Soldier as the best candidate for naked guy (He has, however, bought new trunks - bright red - so he's not really a candidate anymore. Plus, he doesn't use the same sweeping action during his backstroke, so he's fast escaping Nicknamesville.)

My response was to travel south with wifey to pay a visit to Cinco Grande, where we bought a Speedo for me and one for her, as well as two swim caps and a pair of TYR Socket Rocket 2.0s for her.

Now, I'm more of a Montebarra Swedish goggles guy, but you can't buy those here, so hey. At any rate, Grosse Funf has such kickass prices that we were able to score all the goods for less than her suit would have cost at numerous online outlets.

The upshot, of course, was that I had the first day of speedo-ism, which was fine. They are, after all, more comfy and speedy :)

I noticed that Garybob was on hand, but only for an abbreviated swim, and I lent my spare pair of Swedish goggles to Ed (who I thought was named Dave, for some unknowable reason), which he seemed to like. Hurray for Swedish goggles!

Besides all this nonsense, I put in the usual mile and a half, in the usual time, and the physical ailments didn't throw up any roadblocks...

Aside from a few physical glitches here and there, it appears my plan to get five mile-and-a-half (or four, plus a longer workout) swims in each week is on track.

The physical glitches have been an obstacle off and on for a couple of months, which is annoying. Looking back on the yardage from the fall, I see I'm not ahead of where I've been (and I'm swimming four or five days a week now, not six). But the amount of time I use is quite a bit smaller, so I guess that's progress. And yesterday's swim was much improved over those in the past three or four weeks...

However, the decongestant/allergy/chlorine scene is a little less rosy. Although the Claritin-D box says nothing about side effects or whatnot, I was visited for an hour or so by oddly colored polygons that flashed in my peripheral vision about a half-hour after I took a dose. Coincidence? Perhaps, and the effect did not return after subsequent doses, which I am sorry to say seem less effective than usual.

But this is utterly minor, and rinsing out my nasal passages seems to help quite a bit, too. So I'll just keep on keeping on until the alma mater opens its snazzy new facility and I can weasel my way in.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

You are a regular source, and we contact you frequently to ask questions about all sorts of mostly good news, which we run, frequently, in our paper.

One day, we find out that something in your organization went awry, and we are handed a document that lays out the trouble and also seems to show that your org. handled said situation in a reasonable way. (Nobody is being sued.)

We call you on the phone and ask for comment. You clam up utterly, seemingly in the hope that this will cause us to refrain from running the story.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Spring barrel tasting weekend arrives today in sunny Walla Walla, and 54 wineries are listed in this week's Marquee (the Union-Bulletin's entertainment tab). Two of those listings are for the same winery, but for different locations.

Of the 54 wineries, 34 have listings that go beyond the bare bones of hours and addresses. Of those 34, here's the crucial - and why I'm annoyed - numbers:

3 charge no fee

but

1 "may" charge a fee (I won't tell you which winery, but its name is synonymous with those of a mountain nymph and a famous snowmobile manufacturer)2 apparently charge non-refundable fees (including one that offers an "etched logo glass")2 charge a fee for some of their wine, but not for others7 charge a fee refundable with purchase (including one that appears to require you to be a club member AND buy wine)19 give no indication of fee (though 1 has a sinister "new memberships welcome at time of event to participate" note)

OK, so you don't want people to just show up and drink you dry on your dime. I get that. But vintners also send this message when they charge a fee: Our wine isn't good enough to sell itself, so try it at your own risk.

Exhibit B: Wasting time at the city post office. Need a flat-rate priority mail envelope and label? Well, you're going to have to stand in line to get one, then fill it out and stand in line again to mail it. Why? Because although the office has plenty of space, that space does not include a kiosk with envelopes, boxes and labels for priority mail. Nor does it contain an automated postal machine (there are three in the Tri-Cities, but zero here). Nor does the one self-serve option - the stamp machine - contain all the stamps you might need (like, for Christ's sake, three cent stamps to handle the not-so-recent rate increase). At least the Postal Service's Web site has this lovely section.